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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28470429">underwater</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuff_and_nonsense/pseuds/stuff_and_nonsense'>stuff_and_nonsense</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Critical Role (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dreams, Gen, Pre-Slash, Sharing a Bed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 01:06:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,270</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28470429</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuff_and_nonsense/pseuds/stuff_and_nonsense</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ukatoa tries something new. Fjord gets through it, with some help.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Caduceus Clay &amp; Fjord</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Fandom Trumps Hate 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>underwater</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/gifts">Prim_the_Amazing</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for Fandom Trumps Hate, for Prim. Hope you enjoy it!</p><p>CW drowning, somewhat graphic descriptions of decaying bodies</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tonight, in Fjord’s dream, everything is black.</p><p>He’s floating, he realizes, suspended in cold, cold water. It’s dead and stagnant, no salt-taste or brush of currents. Only the drag against his limbs and the lack of solid footing tell him for sure that he’s underwater.</p><p>He starts to swim, although he has no idea which direction to go. He flips himself around, looking for a light, some indication of which way is up, but sees nothing. He’s known strong swimmers who drowned like this, disoriented, burning through all their energy to push themselves deeper into the water.</p><p>He’s not drowning yet. He can’t say how long he’s been here, but certainly past the point where his lungs should be burning. Still, he feels nothing. When he opens his mouth experimentally, the musty taste of the water makes its way down his throat, but nothing else changes. That’s when he realizes he feels no real desire to breathe at all, and no motion of his heart within his chest. He’s already long past drowned.</p><p>The water surrounding him is slightly brighter now, tinted a nauseous green. He can see the shape of his hands just barely visible through the haze. They’re oddly blurry around the edges. As he looks closer, he realizes that bits of skin are flaking off, trailing around his fingers and revealing soft, half-rotten flesh underneath. Panicking, he tries to swim, but his limbs are weak and useless, the muscle decayed. He thinks he hears a whisper pulsing through the water around him: punished, punished, punished. </p><p>He squeezes his eyes closed, pictures his cabin on the Balleater, his friends, the Wildmother’s symbol, anything that might help wake him up. None of it does any good. He feels the water stir.</p><p>He’s barely surprised to see dark shapes floating in the water around him, drifting closer distressingly quickly. They’re corpses, waterlogged and trailing kelp, some human, some instead sporting gills and fins and scales. They’re surrounding him, the closest stretching a moldy arm out towards his face.</p><p>Fuck this. Before everything, on the pretty rare occasions he remembered his dreams, they were usually of his childhood bullies, with agonizingly uncomfortable wet dreams – in the traditional sense – tossed in occasionally. He’d take the most humiliating of either kind over all this, in an instant.</p><p>He only has a moment to think about it before he’s lost in panic, the fear shoving aside any thoughts about waking up, about anything besides the bodies floating towards him. </p><p>There’s one right on top of him, arms wrapping around his torso. He shoves out wildly, trying to push it away. He gets a hand around the soft flesh of its neck. His grip is so weak, with his half-rotten fingers, that even if the thing can choke he’s probably harmless to it. At least it keeps the corpse’s face away from his. </p><p>The other bodies are almost on him now. There’s a ringing in his ears, a panicked siren, but faintly underneath it another sound too. A voice: “Well, this is no good.”</p><p>Fjord tries to find the source of the voice, but makes very little progress. More hands grip him, grabbing at his legs, his hair. He kicks wildly, trying to throw them off.</p><p>Fjord, you know the way out of this,” the voice says, a bit louder. “You’re stronger than you feel right now.”</p><p>Caduceus, it’s Caduceus. Not quite as he is in waking life though - there’s more to his voice than just the sound. It reverberates through Fjord, bringing an echo of the peace and warmth he’d felt in another dream days ago, when the Wildmother had pulled him to safety.</p><p>It’s enough to give him solid footing, an island to crawl up on from the ocean of helpless panic. A part of him, even here, feels faintly silly, but he makes himself think back to the meditation Caduceus has taught him. He imagines the sound of waves, lets it was through him until he can nearly hear it, nearly feel the water moving around him.</p><p>This is his mind, he reminds himself. He’s in control. He has support and power. Ukatoa can’t harm him here.</p><p>He closes his eyes, listens more closely to the waves. The hands of the corpses weaken and fall away. The water warms. He feels a wave of approval and pride wash through him, although who knows if it’s from Caduceus or the Wildmother or Fjord himself.</p><p>His eyes open; he breathes air.</p><p>He’s immediately disoriented again: surrounded by the night sky, rocking with the motion of a point far above the sea, and with his hands wrapped around Caduceus’s neck.</p><p>He lurches backwards, hitting the wall of the crow’s nest. “What the – “ he sputters. “Fuck, Caduceus, I’m sorry. Are you ok? I didn’t - ”</p><p>Caduceus beams at him, even as he massages his neck. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” he says. “That was new, huh?”</p><p>Fjord finishes catching his breath. Neither he nor Caduceus seems seriously injured, and there’s no seawater except where it’s supposed to be, meters below. “Yes, it certainly was. Did I, um, climb all the way up here in my sleep?” </p><p>“Apparently,” says Caduceus. “I’m impressed that you made it.”</p><p>“I don’t think I can really take credit,” Fjord says. “That was - I didn’t think Ukatoa had that much control over me, to make me do something like that. And the Wildmother’s helped before, but she wasn’t there this time.” </p><p>“Wasn’t she? Maybe not directly, but she’s always a part of you and me and our powers. And we were able to bring you back. Everything worked out like it should.”</p><p>“Caduceus, I nearly killed you…”</p><p>“But you didn’t. You found me and you fought them off. I’m proud of you.” He beams. “You’re doing great.”</p><p>Fjord shakes his head incredulously. “You’re sure you’re ok?” He peers at Caduceus’s neck, checking for bruises, but of course it’s impossible to tell under the fur.</p><p>“I’m fine, I’m fine. I wouldn’t mind getting back to sleep though.”</p><p>“Of course,” says Fjord. “I’ll just…” He leans over to look at the ladder of ropes leading down. He’s not terribly excited about the prospect of climbing back down in the dark, or about laying alone in his cabin once he does. </p><p>Caduceus, of course, misses nothing. “Would you like to stay up here the rest of the night? It might be safer.”</p><p>Fjord hesitates. “It won’t be if I attack you again.”</p><p>“You won’t.” Caduceus shifts the blankets around, pushing some of them towards Fjord.</p><p>It really might be safer, if something happens again – Caduceus might be able to wake him up sooner this time. He takes the offered blankets and lies down, fidgeting to fit himself into the small space that’s free. It’s tight, and his back is pressed against Caduceus’s. He almost gets back up again. He should be embarrassed, right? To go cuddle up in someone else’s bed like he’s a scared kid. </p><p>It does help though. Caduceus is warm against his back, his fur better than any of the blankets in the chill night air. Sharing space with everyone in Caleb’s dome was sort of similar, with everyone huddled together, but this is somehow better – closer contact, solid walls around them. If he’d been able to do this when he was actually a kid, he would have slept much better. The sound of the ocean around him is another comfort, and he focuses on the waves again as he tries to sleep. When he opens his eyes to sunlight some time later, he’s surprised to find himself as refreshed as he’s ever been.</p>
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